Is White House Counsel Being Set Up as Gitmo Fall Guy?

Fingers of blame are pointing at White House counsel Greg Craig for missing a January deadline to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility—but the blame is misplaced, sources say.

Amid mounting criticism Craig is expected to leave his position “in short order,” Politico reports. “Sources familiar with the process believe Craig is being set-up as the fall guy and say the blame for missing the deadline extends well beyond him,” the story says.

The White House miscalculated Congress’ willingness to appropriate money to close the facility and Americans’ fears of trying accused terrorists on U.S. soil, the story says. One Bush administration official attributed the problems to naivety by aides to President Obama.

“To a certain extent, they had drunk a lot of the far-left Kool-aid,” the official said. They wrongly believed “that everybody, or most people, at Guantanamo were innocent and shouldn’t be there, and the Bush administration was not working very hard to resolve these issues.”

Last month, Craig was replaced as the individual in charge of the Guantanamo closure by Pete Rouse, a former Congressional aide and top adviser.